Water ride attractions have become popular in water theme parks and other entertainment facilities throughout the country. Some of these water ride attractions comprise a ride surface having a sheet flow of water thereon designed to allow participants to ride on the flowing body of water, and therefore, for the safety of the participants, they require the ride surface to be provided with adequate surface padding. And to enable the water flowing on the ride surface to be easily propelled thereon, such as from front to the back, and easily drained therefrom, such as along the back, it is desirable for the ride surface to have a means for draining water from the ride surface. This not only helps facilitate the development of the proper sheet flow and clearance of water from the ride surface, but it also helps enable the participants riding on the ride surface to properly enter and safely exit from the ride surface when needed.
For this purpose, many such water ride attractions have previously incorporated the use of conventional industrial grating or a combination of industrial grating with a layer of PVC matting attached thereon with open spaces between them to allow water to drain through, such as into a storage tank below. An example of this type of drainage system is one that has been used in connection with Applicant's previous water ride attraction known as the FlowRider®. The FlowRider® is essentially a stationary wave generating machine that has a resilient inclined ride surface on which a sheet flow of water is propelled relatively upward thereon. The rider who participates is able to use the upward force of the flowing body of water, on one hand, along with the downward force of gravity, on the other hand, to reach an equilibrium point, wherein it is desirable for the participants to be able to safely enter onto the ride surface and exit therefrom, such as near the front or back, respectively. Accordingly, it was desirable to furnish a floor support system that helps not only support the flowing body of water on the ride surface, but also allows the flowing body of water to be drained from the ride surface and into the storage tank below.
It should be noted that a drainage system near the front close to where the nozzles that propel the water onto the ride surface are located is desired so that water does not build up as it is being injected onto the ride surface. The front drainage system preferably safely supports the participants as they enter onto the water ride from the front. Likewise, it is desirable to have a drainage system near or along the back, to support any participant that may fall and be swept toward the back, and to allow water flowing on the ride surface to be drained into a tank and recirculated back toward the front nozzles.
One problem with the above mentioned drainage system is that when the grating with the matting thereon continued to be unevenly loaded during operation, the matting tended to tear or loosen from the grating, and these tears would either take place along the seams due to weak weld joints or along the upper and lower layers where the matting would eventually come apart. And unfortunately, when these problems occurred, the grating was not reparable and therefore the attraction became unsafe to operate as well as costly and time consuming to replace.
An additional problem with the previous design is that the matting required a predetermined mold to be used, which ended up limiting the size (width and length) that the matting could come in, which can be a problem especially because the production is often outsourced to outside fabricators. This often resulted in having to put together a patch-work of pieces and associated seams where multiple pieces of matting had to be joined together, which resulted in weak joints containing discontinuities and potential scratch hazards, such as in the event a participant slides over the joint, etc.
Because of these problems, a need has arisen to develop an improved drainage system design for water rides such as the FlowRider®.